You have the power to change lives.
Access to land lies at the heart of ending poverty – without land, there can be no housing and housing is the key to stability and opportunity. By using your voice to improve access to safe and secure land, you can help create the foundation for better housing.
Solid Ground
Solid Ground’s vision is a world where everyone has access to land for shelter. Its mission is to change land policy and systems to ensure that more people around the globe have access to a decent home. The campaign’s theory of change is to activate and coordinate the mobilization of existing and new allies to motivate policy makers to enact and implement policy that will advance access to viable land for shelter.
While the campaign is focused entirely on access to land, it is divided into four sub-themes which are related to access to land: secure tenure, gender equality, slum upgrading and disaster resilience.
Current challenges and specific barriers to improving access to land for shelter
The first major barrier to improving access to land is the large-scale inability of, specifically local government, to proactively identify viable and well-located land for inclusive residential development. This leaves poor communities isolated and excluded from opportunities and exacerbates the establishment of informal settlements on the edges of cities. Secondly, the mind-set and political paradigm (predominantly at a local government level) relating to informal settlement upgrading is a major barrier, and government officials, as enablers of development, are not always effective at championing alternative informal settlement upgrading interventions.
Lastly, there is often a lack of sufficient evidence of improved access to land for shelter through participatory-based interventions. Government has on several occasions indicated the necessity for all lobbying and advocacy efforts aimed at influencing the human settlements legislation to be grounded in evidence which clearly articulates the qualitative benefits of participation and partnerships.
Read More on Solid Ground’s Global Advocacy Campaign